As you look around the room right now, you are talking to yourself about everything you see. Your language is structuring your reality. Furniture and pictures are not good or bad in and of themselves; they become beautiful or ugly, valuable or tacky, based upon your descriptions of them. The real" world simply is, but your world is created by your judgments.

Let's use a common example to illustrate this concept. Remember a time in your life when you were in love? Perhaps you had just met the person of your dreams, or held your first child or grandchild. Do you remember what the world was like for you then? Typically, you found beauty everywhere. The sun was brighter and warmer, or the clouds more dramatic. Colors were deeper. You laughed at situations that formerly annoyed you. People in supermarkets let you ahead of them in line. Others smiled at you as you walked down the street. Without effort, you found the perfect greeting card, or the ideal restaurant, or the best spot at the concert.

We say "love is blind" not because it diminishes our sight. On the contrary, it usually intensifies it. The blindness refers to the inability to see what formerly you considered bad, ugly, or meaningless. Love causes you to change your perception - and, subsequently, the language you use to describe it. As a result, the world appears to be more beautiful - and what's more, you usually feel better too.

If we really understood this connection between language and our reality, then the focus of our attention on health would undergo a radical change. Instead of talking to ourselves about germs, flu, headaches, arthritis, and senility, we would talk about enthusiasm, strength, balance, energy, and joy. If we appreciated that what we find is really a function of what we look for, our sense of responsibility for our own life and health would increase dramatically.

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